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1961-1972. A small archive of correspondence, internal memos, and contracts from the period (mostly following the 1966 publication of Many Are Called) when Evans was under contract for two additional books for Houghton Mifflin, neither of which was ever published. The archive begins with an internal document from 1961 discussing the possibility of Houghton Mifflin buying out Evans' contract with Doubleday and outlining the three projects Evans is working on. The backstory to this archive is that Houghton Mifflin published Evans' collaboration with James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, in 1941 and immediately made Evans a superstar in the world of photography, melding photojournalism with photography as art in an unprecedented manner. When they reissued the book in 1960, with 31 additional photographs by Evans, that reputation was enhanced even more. So this archive shows the publisher trying to capitalize on Evans' reputation and fame, and Evans trying to give them something to work with. By inference, it points up what a fortuitous series of events were involved in the success of the first book, appearing as it did just after the Depression and right before the Second World War. In an undated (ca. January 1961) autograph letter signed, Evans writes about visiting Kentucky, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania, and continuing his work on "poverty and distression." (His piece "People and Places in Trouble" appeared in the March 1961 issue of Fortune.) Later in 1961, editor Lovell Thompson writes to Evans proposing two books that HM would like to see from him. Six years later, in 1967, Evans responds with an autograph letter signed suggesting two different books, and he encloses a two-page, typed, formal book proposal for the titles "Types of the Time: an Illustrated Social Register" and "American Photographs: Second Series," suggesting that the former could "be ready for book manufacture by year's end, though I should prefer not to set a final date at this writing." Herein follows a signed contract, albeit with revisions: apparently a finalized contract was then drafted and sent out. Internal correspondence in the following years shows the staff concerned with protecting/returning the Evans photographs that they have on hand; having the proper permissions from Evans' photographic subjects; and the progress, or lack thereof, of the titles under contract. Three years later, with no projects in hand, Thompson retired, the contracts missing (and the advance long gone), a new contract is issued and signed by Evans, in 1970. Several months later, attempts are made by Houghton Mifflin to cancel the contract and to request the return of a least a part of the advance, which was paid in 1967. Three letters to Evans in 1970, then one in 1971, and one in 1972, all apparently go unanswered. Evans died in 1975 (despite there being a file folder here with his name dated 1976); and these final two projects went unpublished. In all two autograph letters signed by Evans, two book proposals typed by him, and two signed contracts, as well as more than two dozen retained copies of memos and correspondence providing context during these times. The very first memo, from 1961, is split in half; the remainder of the lot is near fine. [#036692] $8,500

(NY), Aperture, (1979). A volume in Aperture's History of Photography series. This copy is inscribed by the screenwriter Lloyd Fonvielle, who provides the introduction, to film critic Pauline Kael, in 1981. The introduction comprises the entire text of the volume, other than the appendices; the rest of the book reproduces Evans's photographs, without caption. Light foxing to prelims; near fine in boards, without dust jacket, as issued. [#035974] $350